I
Alexandria, Aegyptus 69 AD
In this age, Egypt was part of the Roman Empire with a special status. The province had become a shelter for a kind gifted with magic: Norse priestesses of Nature, healers and witches.
The people born of Celtic, Scandinavian or German ancestries were barbarians to Roman law, the men to be used as mercenaries or slaves, the women being famed for their beauty and taken as concubines to breed fine children.
A small number of them had fled the Empire's oppression beyond the Mediterranean Sea to Aegyptus.
There were far more women than men among them. They lived in their insulae, such small apartments that in fact they spent more time into the wild and in commune buildings constituted of atriums and patios. These women were distinct from the Egyptians with their light skin and lucent eyes, their hair being often fair and they drew blue and violet tattoos on their arms and face to be protected from bad luck.
Their magic ran in their blood only from mother to daughter so the men of this community had been left behind, serving as slaves and weaponry for the Roman citizens with the hope to be reunited someday. But soon it happened to become a purely matriarchal community.
On the third generation though, this kinship of powerful women was very close to be wiped out.
They had extended their lodgings to an honourable dimension on the outskirts of Alexandria, but the corridors and the baths were resonating of silence and neglect. Older women were scarce, the ones first arrived in the Egyptian shore now dead and buried in the desert.
To regenerate their blood and survive longer, the community made sacrifices to Maponos the God of Youth, but it seemed that the longer they were away from their true land, the more their magic withered.
They continued to chant their pagan songs at night by the seaside, the waves washing away their howling sounds. The druid witches celebrated the rare births in the name and glory of Rosmerta, a Goddess of fertility and abundance.
The strongest blood line of this community was the Ballard. Their ancestor an erudite in Druidic magic from whom they had received a jewel, a pendant, the only legacy of this outstanding family.
His last known female heir, Fallon had three children from a Roman praetor, a magistrate, who took her as his favourite before she escaped. Three daughters, three witches: Odessa, Aracely and Nova.
These three girls formed the Ballard clan and were among the few hopes of survival.
Odessa the eldest had gone to the other side of the seas to journey the Roman Empire seeking others fellow communities and she was yet to return.
Aracely the least powerful of the sisterhood worked with some desert tribes to enhance her magic.
Nova, the youngest was about to go through the ceremony of oath to be a vestal dedicated to Nantosuelta, the Goddess of nature,earth,fire,and fertility.
And it begins NOW.
